Political Violence in Arizona

While we all wait to learn whether Rep. Gifford will survive, it’s clear that Federal Judge John Roll was shot and killed. A ten-year old girl is also reported dead. The shooter has been identified as Jared Laughner.

Today’s events are tragic, but sadly not unexpected. I know we all knew that the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh hate speech would culminate in something ugly. The question is, “now what?”

“We are a nation of 300 million people with approximately 250 million firearms in private hands, according to various surveys. About two-fifths of American households have a gun in the home. Considering the amount of arms in America, it’s amazing we are as safe as we are.” — Jim Kessler, the former policy director for Americans for Gun Safety from 2001 to 2004.

If you aren’t members already, join and support. The Southern Poverty Law Center. They keep tabs on all the crazies out there. And they are multiplying faster than ever aided and abetted by some very powerful people. http://www.splcenter.org/

The guy was a lefty. Since when do lefties take their marching (or shooting) orders from Sarah Palin? I thought you guys hated her.

I’ll repost what I posted on Brainshrub’s facebook page before 6am this morning:

?…and I’ll leave this… part of a Reuters Twitter Interview with a girl who hung out with the shooter in high school http://yfrog.com/h3wjqp She describes him as liberal and a pothead and obsessed with 2012. In high school he was for John Kerry and wore a One Term President button.

I think this shooting is more about schizophrenia (or whatever mental illness the guy has) than his politics. If we wish to remain a Free Society, then we cannot allow Thought Police to govern what we say or how we say it based on how someone who is mentally unstable may respond.

If someone kills (or tries to) a person who was the recipient of an Olbermann ‘Worst Person in the World’ treatment…should Olbermann be held responsible?

“If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. If a liberal doesn’t like a talk show host, he demands that the host be removed from the air.”

There must be lots of far-left libruls who carry Glock 19s with 30-round extended magazines for shooting Democratic politicians.

After reviewing what’s known about the guy to date, the Timesnotes what others in the blogosphere already have suggested:

“the rambling, disconnected writings and videos he has left on the Web are consistent with the delusions produced by a psychotic illness like schizophrenia, which develops most often in the teens or 20s.”

Yes, but on his myspace page he said he liked The Communist Manifesto, so therefore he is a Lefty, and any “proof” or depth you try to add to the situation is moot. Stop trying to make it complicated. sheesh…oh yeah, and some girl who met him at a party once or something told the AP or someone via Twitter that he was a lefty. This is all the proof we need.

“If someone’s looking for something to point at the right for it’s the fact that more comprehensive national health care would have probably caught Loughner’s mental illness earlier on and treated it before he became violent.” Credit to FYMF

The right-wing blogs bit hard on Loughner having Marx and Engels on his reading list, but none dared mention that Ayn Rand’s “We The Living” is on list of favorite reads too. Please…

I knew a guy in college who vacillated between being a Marxist and a Jesus freak. He was eventually diagnosed as manic depressive. A folk rocker I knew with hair down to his butt eventually became a Reagan Republican. It’s a bit much, reading so much from a reading list when someone’s that age.

We’ll know more about Loughner soon. Eventually we’ll know why the Army wouldn’t take him (psych evaluation?). People would not sit next to the guy in class. He got tossed out of school until he got psychiatric treatment, etc.

There’s no question that this individual was very sick… whether or not his actions were triggered by political rhetoric is something for his doctors to say, not us.
But, I find the fact that we are convinced that politics must have been his primary motivation very telling.
Right, Left, moderate whatever… the majority of citizens are getting sick of all the bickering. They are saying to our leaders -see what can happen when you act this way. Learn how to disagree with dignity and get on with the business you were elected to handle.
No one wants to be in a room with bunch of kids yelling and fighting for very long. Wake up Washington- act right or take your toys and go home.

The thing about him, like every other blowhard around, is that he is so obsessed with “the other team” that he loses all objectivity about the situation.

Yesterday I wrote a blog about the situation, and pointed out that all of the gun-at-campaign-rallys-don’t-retreat-reload imagery was wrong. I mentioned the Republicans doing this because I couldn’t find an instance of the democratic party doing it.

Now that he, in the same fervor that he probably spent trying initially attach the shooter to the Daily Kos site ( http://twitter.com/#!/ThunderPig/status/23895203085553664 ) has found the image on the Democratic site, he’s going to hold onto this and attempt to milk it for all that it’s work. It’s what simple minded dolts do.

Here’s an idea: EVERYONE stop using the idea of violence or violent imagery to rally people. It makes us all look like stupid fucking bloodthirsty Americans. Just because the other team does it doesn’t mean that your team is absolved from blame. Saying stupid shit like this to ramp up the fervor of your retards may not cause the reasonable people out there to start shooting, but it certainly helps those idiots on the fringe out in their cause.

I don’t expect Bobby to think about this objectively, because I don’t think that there’s an objective bone in the mouth-breathing waterhead’s body. I just wish everyone reading this would be objective.

Besides, we all know that Bobby is the only person on here who has creepily insinuated that he is okay with murdering a fellow American.

“The massacre in Tucson is, in a sense, irrelevant to the important point. Whatever drove Jared Lee Loughner, America’s political frequencies are full of violent static.”— George Packer, in the New Yorker.

Jason, I was running down rumors on a breaking story…and if you had a single ounce of decency…you would have also posted my tweet discounting the previous suspicion. Get used to breaking news and events where the story and leads are worked out in real-time on a crowd-sourced platform like Twitter. As my old CO used to say, “Early Intel is often wrong or misleading…don’t be afraid to share something that might be wrong for fear being hit over the head with it later. Just be sure to update the Intel with more correct info in a timely manner.”

On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court embraced the National Rifle Association’s contention that the Second Amendment provides individuals with the right to take violent action against our government should it become “tyrannical.” The following timeline catalogues incidents of insurrectionist violence (or the promotion of such violence) that have occurred since that decision was issued:

Both Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) both told POLITICO they will be carrying their guns in their home districts for protection. Both lawmakers hold a conceal and carry permit, but will not carry their weapons in the District of Columbia.

Shuler, who received a serious death threat in 2009, says he is planning to carry his weapon more often and boost security at his district events. He’s even encouraging his staffers to get their own conceal to carry permits.

“You never think something like this will happen, but then it does,” Shuler said “After the elections, I let my guard down. Now I know I need to have [my gun] on me. We’re going to need to do a much better job of with security at these events.”

“Both Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) both told POLITICO they will be carrying their guns in their home districts for protection. Both lawmakers hold a conceal and carry permit”

As the wingnuts try to evade responsibility for encouraging violence through their rhetoric and actions–including Palin who is scrambling to remove statements and images from her various Websites, it’s good to have a reminder

When I come across as the reasonable person, you know that you look stupid. Just admit that your team is just as bad (if not worse) at this violent-imagery-and-rhetoric-entering-into-the-political-debate-and-boy-it-should-stop phenomenon and you’ll be okay.

This is a senseless tragedy instigated by someone who appears based on news reports to be very mentally unstable. I don’t think it is appropriate to try to spin this into a political issue.

Our elected representatives (at the federal, state, and local level) make so many sacrifices to serve us. While politicians are generally held in low regard by the public, few of us really understand what they and their family go through to serve the public. At the least, they sacrifice their personal family time, privacy, finances, face all types of criticism (some fair, some not), and in some instances, legitimate policy differences are transformed into an attempt to portray them as immoral and unethical.

No one should be subjected to death threats and violence but I’d say most who have served in public office for several years have endured at least threats of violence. Based on my personal knowledge, there were a couple of times in eight years that such threats were experienced. I never took such threats seriously (based on the source, context, etc.) but if someone really wants to hurt you, they probably won’t tell you beforehand. Its fairly easy to find where you live, work, go to the store, etc.

At this time, my thoughts and prayers are with those who were injured and the families of those who were killed. And I sincerely thank those in public office (even those who I strongly disagree with) for their willingness to serve.

“I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days [to talk to liberals] — Ann Coulter

”I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. … No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out.” — Glenn Beck

Ailes wants “the other side” to tone it down too? So I guess he is admitting that Fox isn’t “fair and balanced” if it is taking sides.

Maybe I’ve missed something, but while the left has its share of “bombast” it in no way compares to what comes from the right. I certainly don’t recall anyone on the left saying the best way to talk with conservatives is “with a baseball bat.” I certainly don’t recall anyone on the left talking about the need for “second amendment solutions” to losing an election, or wanting people to be “armed and dangerous” in their opposition to a policy. I don’t recall anyone on the left talking about how they could personally kill someone who they disagree with and I never recall anyone on the left urging his/her supports “don’t retreat, reload.”

Only if this means to “reload” our brain cells and not retreat in fear from the ideas of those we don’t agree with, rather, share ideas and challenge each other to live lives of excellence rather than complacency or mediocracy.

The LA Times has posted the video that got Jared Lee Loughner suspended from Pima Community College.

Now that there has been proven to be no connection between the insane killer and Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Fox News, isn’t it time for the Left and allied media to issue an apology? Afterall, Obama stated that it was the act of an insane killer, right?